


bloom

by astrxd



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, just a lil drabble because i was thinking abt canon again, post-HTTYD 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 09:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18258926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrxd/pseuds/astrxd
Summary: “Az, we’re gettingmarriedand I still can’t help but think about--”“And that’s okay. That’s perfectly fine, Hiccup. I don’t expect you to just let go of him. I don’t expect you to just forget how sad you are because something happier is going to happen. Our relationship -- it’s not a substitute for yours with Toothless. Our marriage isn’t going to create an emotional replacement for the dragons leaving. Happiness… Happiness doesn’t magically make sadness go away.”[a quick little post-HTTYD 3 thing in which the chief of berk and his soon-to-be-wife sift through their feelings as their wedding day grows closer]





	bloom

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this is, exactly?? but it's here and i wrote it and i'm gonna post it bc why the heck not am i right??? :)

She found him at the beach -- not at all to her surprise. The first time she tracked him down there, he told her that it was the same place that Toothless first connected with the Light Fury. 

Astrid kind of saw it as a new cove.

Though breaks for the chief of New Berk were far and few between, Astrid learned that Hiccup sought respite there when he found the opportunity. It had been a quiet place to cool down over the rest of that first summer, it proved to be temperate during fall, and while winter brought a thick blanket of snow over the island, the beach was still surprisingly pleasant -- a result of the island’s warmer climate.

Since the little shore had become a regular hideaway, of sorts, the abrupt slope of sand had become significantly easier to navigate. Snow, however, was a new story, and how Hiccup got down there… Well, judging by the tracks he left -- a few steps then what seemed to be some fumbling and sliding, with some sand peeking through -- Astrid assumed that it wasn’t the smoothest trip down. At the halfway-ish mark, it kind of looked like a literal trip down.

(Oh, Hiccup. She heaved an endeared sigh and smiled when she spotted him down below.)

Astrid steadied herself with one hand on a tree as she stood at the precipice between forest and beach. “You know,” she called down to him, “we should really get around to building some stairs here.”

Hiccup turned around. Even with the distance between them, she noticed his shoulders jump a little, and his surprise was also betrayed by his expression -- raised brows and wide eyes. Immediately, he got to his feet and scrambled over to stand in front of her.

“Careful, Astrid, it’s slip--aaand you’re already--”

Before he could finish his sentence, let alone put out his hands in further warning, Astrid took a stance: a side straddle with her knees bent and arms out for an extra bit of balance. With such a pose (and her incredible balance, of course), skating down the slope was relatively easy, though she did trail the hand behind her through the snow to stay in line.

Astrid made it down by progressively lowering herself, yes, but with all of her momentum, stopping was shaping up to be a little more of a challenge -- especially without her axe handy. Thankfully… Hiccup was waiting for her. He stood at the base of the incline, sporting the kind of lopsided grin that made her heart stutter. 

When she reached the bottom, all she had to do was hold out her arms and she slid right into his embrace. If he wasn’t clearly digging his prosthetic into the snow and sand, she would have knocked him over, but they’ve pretty much gotten a good handle on those kind of…  _ Dramatic  _ moments. Their torsos were pressed flush, their noses were barely touching, their smiles were matching--

“Slippery?” Astrid promptly submitted, filling in the blank that he’d left only moments ago. “Oh, I figured. Hence my suggestion that we get on those stairs.”

Hiccup snorted. “We’ll get ‘round to it eventually. Maybe once we’re not, y’know -- drowning in wedding arrangements.” 

(Ah, wedding arrangements. In no more than a few weeks time, the two of them would be officially married. All that they had left to figure out were minor details, but practically the entire village insisted on making the occasion grand _. _ Like,  _ grand- _ grand, because the inimitable union of a revolutionary chief and an unrivaled warrior simply warranted it. Astrid didn’t mind, really -- at the end of the day, regardless of how many festivities followed the ceremony, they’d be married. That was the part that mattered the most to her.)

“Oh, you’re telling me. My mother has new hairstyle ideas everyday,” Astrid hummed. In spite of the cold, she felt warm under Hiccup’s gaze. She lifted her hands to either of his cheeks and circled her thumbs over his skin. 

“Well, you’ve still got time to back out and put it all to rest, if you really--”

“Hiccup.” Astrid pinched her brows together and sternly cut him off.

“No, no, hey, don’t make that face -- Astrid, I was ki--”

“ _ Hiccup _ . _ ” _

...He leaned forward to press their foreheads together. They searched each other’s eyes -- Astrid could tell that he was trying to tell her that he really  _ was  _ only joking, though she was too busy looking for the weary anxiousness glazing over green eyes. After a moment, Hiccup looked down and he sighed.

“M’sorry. It’s just--”

“A lot?” She offered. Their breath mingled in soft puffs of white. “Don’t apologize. I know. Of course I know.”

She knew that it wasn’t her -- or her love, or them -- that he was doubting. In fact, Astrid knew that it wasn’t  _ doubt  _ that he was feeling at all. She moved her hands down from his cheeks to either side of his neck, then around his shoulders. 

“If I'm being honest, I always, I kinda -- I thought,” Hiccup murmured. “I thought that they’d… That they’d both…”

In her arms, she felt him grimace then press his face into the crook of her neck. The rest of his sentence faded away, a mumble into her collar, hardly coherent -- yet understood all the same. Astrid slipped one of her hands into his hair and began threading her fingers through it. He didn’t need to say a single word for her to just know that, when he imagined their wedding day, he thought that his father and Toothless would both be there to celebrate with them.

She knew because that’s what she imagined, too.

Toothless and Stormfly, standing tall and proud at the altar as their riders took another massive step into a world of protecting the peace between dragons and Vikings -- Stoick the Vast, wiping tears from his eyes as his son married the woman he loved, as his people faced their new chieftess, as he officially could stop saying  _ future _ daughter-in-law--

...Yeah. Yeah, she knew.

Astrid felt Hiccup inhale, exhale -- shuddery and slightly labored and obviously in an attempt to compose himself. She murmured her hushes and kissed the side of his head. When she looked up and over Hiccup’s shoulder, she saw the dreary grays of the sky melt into pale blue and white; when she took a deep breath of her own, she felt the cold air expand the knotted pit of her stomach.

“Me, too,” she assured him. “Me, too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, but rather than interrupt him again, Astrid decided to let him get this one out. If he was apologizing for something, it was likely that he’s been mulling over it for some time now. Though she couldn’t see his face, she could tell that he was wrinkling his nose. “I--I should, I shouldn’t be… I shouldn’t be  _ sad. _ We’re getting married and I’m -- gods, am I thrilled. I want this, Astrid, so please don’t think that I don’t. I do. I have, I do, I’m yours--”

“ _ Aw.” _

...Whoops. So much for not interrupting? She couldn’t help it; in spite of all of his anxious rambling, Hiccup still somehow found a way to be unbearably sweet and it just got to her. He laughed quietly at her reaction and squeezed her hand.

“Sorry,” Astrid sighed. It was easy to let her smile slip away when she reminded herself of what they were discussing. “Keep going, please.”

Hiccup shook his head. “That’s… That’s, no, yeah. That’s mostly it. I’m… I miss him, Astrid. I miss both of them. Back to back, I lost them, and now--”

“Hiccup,” Astrid said, deciding to stop him there before he voiced the rest spiral she knew he was whirling through. She adjusted her arms so that they were better wrapped around his shoulders and she eased one of her hands through his hair. “Hiccup, it’s okay. It’s okay, I promise.”

“Az, we’re getting  _ married  _ and I still can’t help but think about--”

“And that’s okay. That’s perfectly fine, Hiccup. I don’t expect you to just let go of him. I don’t expect you to just forget how sad you are because something happier is going to happen. Hiccup, our relationship -- it’s not a substitute for yours with Toothless. Our marriage isn’t going to create an emotional replacement for the dragons leaving. Happiness… Happiness doesn’t magically make sadness go away.”

He was quiet for a moment, then his frame slumped with a silent, heavy exhale. “I know you’re right, but I feel like you’re wrong.”

“I’m right,” she insisted, “and I know I’m right because I’m sad too -- how could I not be? When I imagined a honeymoon, I always thought--“

“That we’d take off flying into the horizon and be gone for who knows how long, just us? _ ” _

“Exactly. If by ‘just us,’ you mean us four.” 

“Oh, without question.”

They shared a laugh, and in the middle of it, Hiccup brought his forehead to hers and their wrinkled noses bumped and their matching grins were broad. They never brought it up, never planned a minute of the events that would follow their wedding… But they knew. Both of them knew that their respective dragons were going to be part of whatever they chose to do.

And now, there they were.

Astrid had pictured her future to not just involve Hiccup, but Stormfly and Toothless -- Stormfly because she was her best friend… And Toothless. N ot because he was  _ Hiccup’s  _ best friend, but b ecause Toothless was important to her, too.

It wasn’t difficult for anyone to recognize how much the Night Fury meant to their chief and how deep the bond between them ran, but Toothless wasn’t just an extension of her betrothed. Toothless was…  _ Amazing.  _ Toothless was the first dragon that she saw as more than a creature that burned down huts and stole livestock; Toothless was her first positive experience with the animals that would later become so important to her and the rest of Berk. They even bonded, one on one, when she learned how to fly with him both "just in case" of an emergency or if Hiccup was too busy. 

While Astrid owed Hiccup immensely for helping her become the person she was now, she similarly attributed so much of herself to Toothless. Together, those two revolutionaries changed her world. 

But he was right. Her world -- their world -- wasn’t one that deserved dragons.

When Hiccup eased out of her arms and turned his loving, gentle gaze from her face to the sky stretching far beyond the distant peaks and ridges of New Berk, Astrid’s eyes didn’t follow. Instead, she watched him carefully -- the pull of his lips, the knit of his brows… The scanning of his irises across the clouds. 

“You think they’re okay?”

“I think he’s wondering the same thing.”

He looked back at her with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face.

“How--hey, how are you so good at that?” He mused, sniffling once before leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. “How do you always know just what to say?”

“I think it’s because I know you,” Astrid hummed in simple reply. She touched her hand to his heart. “Maybe because I know this.”

“...Sap.” Hiccup grinned.

“Dork.”

“Milady.”

“Babe.”

“Future chieftess.”

“Chief, right now.” Astrid declared herself the winner by leaning in to steal a kiss. Hiccup conceded with an exaggerated slump of his shoulders and a sigh, but his smile said otherwise about his feelings towards ‘losing’ their little back-and-forth.

“Hey, Astrid?”

“Mhmm?”

“I wanna show you something.”

“Oh, boy. Last time you said this, you had  _ flight suits  _ lined up for us.”

“No, no. You’ll like this one,” he laughed, squeezing her hand. “I think. I hope.”

“Hey, I liked the last surprise -- loved it, even!” She emphasizes her point with a serious expression, but he knows that she’s sincere without it. And she knows that he knows.

He didn’t need to tell her to follow him; all he had to do was move his hand down her arm until he could lace their fingers together. It was a short walk down the snowy, sandy beach, around a bend of an old, water-beaten trunk and another slope. There was a tree there, a standing one, straddling the line between the lush forest that composed so much of New Berk and the sand of the beach--

And it was in bloom. In spite of the snow, it was in bloom.

Astrid could tell that it was because the woven, drooping branches carried more flower buds than open flowers -- what shocked her the most was that it was very clearly  _ winter _ . Most of the island retained its greenery, even the areas (like the heart of their village and its perimeter) that were completely covered in snow, but… A tree? Blooming, right as winter began to solidify its grasp on New Berk?

She couldn’t believe it. Granted, she’s had her expectations completely uprooted before, and on a much larger scale at that, but…

Back on Berk, flora was basically nonexistent during winter -- a Berkian summer didn’t yield a quarter as many unique kinds of plants as a New Berkian winter. She’s seen bushes and trees, underbrush and vines; all sorts of things that have only really existed on islands away from home. Now that New Berk was home, Astrid felt like there was so much more to see and discover, like trees that flowered in winter.

It had a dark wood and a winding trunk and weeping branches, heavy with pale, pinkish-white blossoms. Astrid exhaled her wonder as she stepped forward, one hand reaching out to touch one of the strings of flowers. They felt like a reminder of the wonder that still existed in their world, even if they could no longer freely pursue it by taking to the skies.

“They’re beautiful,” Astrid said, smiling gently. “I’ve never seen flowers like this, let alone blooming in winter.”

Hiccup stepped forward, one hand comfortably settling at the small of her back. “There’s a lot of New Berk that we still haven’t explored -- so many things we don’t know yet. We’ve been here for months, but it still feels like it’s only the beginning.”

She looked over at him. “It  _ is _ only the beginning.”

Astrid intended it in an uplifting way, meant to set up their future together on New Berk as a light in the distance, only…

The way he looked at the blooming tree, then at her, didn’t match the tone of a happy beginning. It only took her so many seconds to see that this beginning was so hard for Hiccup because beginnings only happened after endings.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the ending of his days with Toothless. This was the beginning of a life without him.

“Hey…” She whispered, turning to properly face him once more.

“I wish we could go back,” Hiccup murmured, and the resurfacing of his emotional aches made Astrid’s chest tight. “I wish we could find them. I wish I could see him, but I -- I know we can’t. I know… I know that we belong here and they belong there. I know it’s too soon. They --  _ we  _ need the distance. We need to learn life without them and that means being apart--”

“For now,” Astrid said, “Just for now, Hiccup. Maybe one day, though…”

He closed his eyes and sighed.

“...One day.”

Astrid managed a smile and touched her lips to his cheek. “I’m proud of you, you know. I know how much you want to see him, and I want to see Stormfly, but…” She shook her head. “You’re right. We both need space, we all have responsibilities. The fact that you recognize that, Hiccup -- it says volumes about how much you’ve grown. How much you’ve learned about yourself.”

She moved her hand to his face and rubbed her thumb against his skin. As he leaned in, he opened his eyes again. “So… What do you think?” Astrid asked. “Still looking?”

“Little bit,” Hiccup admitted, smiling sheepishly. “I… I don’t think I’ll ever stop. But at the very least, I’ve got a better idea of where to look and what I'm looking for.”

"That's more like it."

Hiccup held her hand and pressed it to his chest. Through leather, Astrid could feel the beat of a chief’s heart. 

(And in his eyes, she saw the soul of a dragon.)

* * *

 On their wedding day, she wore a crown fashioned of the flowers from that tree -- the one that grew not quite on the beach and not quite in the forest, but in the winter all the same. In between transition and in the midst of hardship... Astrid knew that they would find happiness.

Together.


End file.
